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Topic Review (Newest First)

02-09-2012 03:00 PM

5Creed

Re: Daughter, meeting the ex's new boyfriend

I understand how you feel; I mean why should we be the ones to take the higher road when we did not ask for all this sh*t! It would feel so good to tell our kids what we really think of our exes and exactly what they did to break up the marriage. However, that would mean stooping to below them and in the end, the kids would be hurt. Rise above it, be the better person and know that one day, our kids are going to find out just exactly what went wrong. Your daughter is going to thank you one day; not now, but in the future, for being this way and not talking badly about her mother. I just tell myself: all will be revealed but not now. As much as this hurts-it hurts me to say it to myself-the ex is their parent and that will never change. You are the parent also-and it is your choice to sit back and ride it out which I feel is the right choice! The way the exes act now will come back to bite them in the a** and how satisfying it will be to smile and think what a big hole they dug themselves into. Be the classy one and take care of that little girl of yours!

02-06-2012 07:13 PM

sisters359

Re: Daughter, meeting the ex's new boyfriend

If your daughter has to seek her mother's approval, she would benefit greatly from counseling. It's not a fun way to grow up--feeling inadequate unless mommy--or the next guy--loves you. You have the power to prevent your daughter from becoming so insecure that she lets men define her--as her mother already clearly does. I urge you to look into it.

My ex was "engaged" to another woman 5 weeks after our court date--he'd known her for about 3 weeks. He had our kids going over there on weekends, etc. The kids got really attached to her son. Then he started to get to know her--yikes! At 6 mo, he'd broken it off and ended it all. The kids told me how sad they felt, losing their "step brother" (as they had been told to call the other boy). I encouraged my kids to tell their dad how they felt, and he was a bit more careful next few times around--waiting a few months (but introducing them at about 2 months to a woman he dumped a few weeks later).. So he's learned to be a bit more circumspect for the kids' sake.

But really, as hard as it is, be grateful your daughter is ok with the new guy. It will make her life easier. That's all that matters. In a few years, she'll hate everyone, and he'll get more than his share--as she comes to realize his role in the divorce. If you remain calm and steady and loving, she'll understand how things unfolded. If you let your rage rule you, she'll think her mom may have had a good reason to leave. How do you want your daughter to see you, many years down the road? Having those feelings and venting here is great, but for her sake, be the grown up she can rely on. I'm sorry you are going through this.

02-06-2012 07:03 PM

Feelingalone

Re: Daughter, meeting the ex's new boyfriend

Shoo, I understand your pain. Believe me I do. And yes, your ex is a dimwit and is not at all thinking about your daughter. My ex was the same.

Just remember, long term your daughter will remember who acted with their best interest and who didn't. I myself had a post divorce relationship end. Fortunately I didn't introduce her to my son, for the very reason the books say, it can harm your child to keep bringing people into their lives who are only there for a few months and then gone. Creates that feeling of loss over and over again.

You could ask your ex to discuss this, although it wouldn't sink in I'm sure. But if you do broach the topic, do so out of pure concern for the well being of your daughter. If you do and your ex says it isn't your concern, please correct her and let her know that if it afffects your daughter, it is of your concern.

Also, be prepared to have your daughter go to counseling. I'm keeping an eye on my son for that.

Well my two cents.

02-06-2012 06:15 PM

Wheels65

Re: Daughter, meeting the ex's new boyfriend

I hear you Shoo...try to remember...one day at a time...what is today will not be 6 months from now. Stay on the high road. Your daughter loves you more than you can know I'm sure of it Kids have very deep insights, often they don't realize it till they are much older.

Remember the future is full of new and change...hold tight man

02-06-2012 03:03 PM

Shooboomafoo

Re: Daughter, meeting the ex's new boyfriend

I dont know.

Maybe they have actually moved on and Im like a garbage sack dragging behind the boat, filling up with water and slowing the process down. Maybe my daughter looks at me like I am pathetic and cant be happy, like mommy is..

Thats the way this whole LIE shapes up in the end.
Mommy looks like shes fine, and happy and all this was meant to be. Daddy looks sad and unhappy and miserable.

Nevermind whats "right". Never mind who did what...

I am trying to move on. Really. I dont "look" for things to harp on.. I feel like I keep reaching the point where the wounds are closing and I am getting stronger, and the wham something reopens the cut, rubs some salt in it, and I am supposed "by law of convenience" to grin and bare it, or, Im the pathetic loser...

02-06-2012 01:52 PM

Shooboomafoo

Daughter, meeting the ex's new boyfriend

Ive been posting on TAM, sort of on a "thought by thought" basis, and didnt really try to keep anything in the same thread. I guess I figured "new thought, new thread" sort of.. Sorry for the confusion. So much of what I wrote in the past appears to be gone now. I wish I could go back and read some of it.

Anyways, heres my rant for today....

Can I just say that it really, really really really sux big baboon a-s-s when the divorced castaway finds out his kid/kids are meeting the new significant person in the ex's life? Sure, "parenting classes" give some indication that too soon is not good, but who really cares as there is always a rebuttal from the ex's isnt there? And then you have people like Rico's ex that havent even waited a week to involve everyone, so it appears that expecting any sort of common sense is unwise for the most part when it comes to someone seeking with every thread of their existence to validate and justify their choice to destroy their marriage... dignity be damned for sure in that matter.

My ex, after killing our marriage with one guy from her past, no longer talks to him. Shes moved on to Guy #2 now. We divorced Aug 31. I still lived there until the first week of Nov. when I finally could move into my own house. So, three months later, apparently, this new relationship of hers is so solid, that it requires introductions to the kid. Of course, if it werent as solid as it needed to be, my ex wife would re-write the Bible and burn every bookstore to the ground for it to be.
Watching her force this new relationship up everyone's a-s-s, was one thing, but now its involved the kid, and theres not a g-damned thing I can do about it.
Soooo,, why does it bother me at all? Knowing full well I would rather hock a lung-cookie smack dab in the middle of her face the next time I see her, I'm supposed to be moving on, realizing the meaninglessness of all this hurt I feel, and realizing that for my own health, that I have to get better fast..

It appears that the amount of hurt and pain I feel, is directly proportional to how much the marriage and family meant to me. Even if it were all in my own head, and she was always a cheating-****, I still held the family as top priority.
It hurts to see them have so little regard for it. How it renders those good things you remember between you, suddenly of questionable merit.. Which then has me thinking, well how stupid was I to care so much?
So my daughter (10) met the new guy this past week. "So what do you think?" I asked her. (probably wrong of me, but oh well). "Hes Nice" she says..
Not quite the "I wanted to rip his eyeballs out" that I had hoped to hear, but I guess this is easier than having to talk her out of hating him for her "moms" sake.

Today I feel like all my hurt and all my humiliation and all my pain is meaningless and worthless, as it will amount to nothing, and comes from the memory of what was nothing. I loved someone wearing a permanent halloween costume, and never knew who she really was. Now I watch her conform the very genre of music she listens to, to be within the range of music "he" listens to, simply to establish something in common between them. Maybe she figures if she pushes that relationship, and forces the kid to meet him, and shows up to his house every day, that it will validate the seriousness of their "relationship". That way, everyone can say, Ohhhh, okay,, well you were right to cheat on your husband and end that marriage, you are so much happier now, surely it was the right thing to do....

Not only do you face the humiliation and devastation of finding out about your spouse's infidelity, and the subsequent divorce, you now as the betrayed spouse, are charged with maintaining the positive view point your kids have of the person that destroyed everything. You cant show your kid that cheating is wrong, while being just mr. superfantastic towards who and what the ex is involved in, at the present. I want my daughter to know that I was incredibly hurt by her mother, that this divorce was none of my doing, and that I do not, nor will i ever agree with her mom jumping from bed to bed afterwards, in search for someone exactly like me, except doesnt really "know" her yet. "He seems nice". Well, he may seem nice, but hes another dooshbag that was also talking to your mother while she was married to me, and establishing grounds for a relationship based upon whatever it was she told him at the time, so in essence your mother AND he, are why your family has been torn apart. Glad he seems "nice" to you.

I reserve no special ground for a man that involves himself with a married woman. HE knows its wrong, no matter what the situation is. If its on the outs, he can wait until its done. But right now, my ex is so far along with this guy, BECAUSE they were "Dating" while she was married to me...
How much can I be responsible for in terms of saving her "good name" when the whole thing stinks of baboon sh!t? What kind of "man" injects himself into a family to get a piece-of-ass from a woman and tears that family apart? Of course, she is to blame more than he is, but suddenly "I" as the estranged ex-spouse am supposed to be supportive of them and act like nothings wrong with it to my daughter?
"He seems nice"..
I think I would rather take a bullet than tear apart a family. What kind of man does this, but then turns around like life is just fine and dandy?
Dont ask me to be supportive of that. I will move on, but it will be without my blessing on her horrible actions. My kid can think hes the world all she wants. Looking to win the never-revealed approval of her mother, by following along in her mothers escapade, "mommy likes him, so I will too, that way maybe mommy will like me too".
You all know how hard it is to feel loved by a person that is so closed off, and so self-centered that people around them starve to death looking for some sign of acceptance of them..
My daughter is caught in that. Shes spent her whole life so far looking for acceptance and approval of a dimwit of a mother, and now that all this has happened, has to follow along in her moms wake, acting happy and accepting of her actions, because of a fear of a breakdown of that paper-thin tie between them..
I note that a lot of my ex-wifes friends are that way too. Its almost as if they are afraid of telling my exwife that shes wrong, becuase the friendship would suffer.
It certainly reflects heavily on my relationship with my exwife, especially when things werent agreeable between us. You can rest assured our marriage was always hinged upon her getting her way. I imagine that philosophy has manipulated a lot of her friends into being mindless yes-men cronies..

So, my kid is all happy going along fine with this situation, not because its good, but to maintain a far too delicate level of relations between her mother and her during all this.

I'd rather have a real love, than one thats required of me or else, especially as a 10 year old, in relation to her mother.